Interesting idea, but I doubt that Rachel would recognize Frigg and the others wouldn’t if they were just normal users in a regular run game. Either they’re NPCs/denizens of this dimension/whatever, or they’re another group of people trapped. If they think that Frigg is a part of the game’s lore or whatever, then the other two should be recognizing the party too.

Well it seems that Rachel is the only one wiht proper sight to them at the moment. E-Merl has his back to them and I think Scipio might be more interested in his drink….plus he sort of looks like the type of guy who isn’t easily impressed.

Oh no, it’s a more competent version of themselves. Looks like one of them transporter accidents.

Their nun is prettier and more compassionate with a sexy Marilyn Monroe mole on her cheek, their elf is more dashing and friendlier, their fighter better armoured and tougher looking and finally they’re so cool they have no need of desert dwarves or gnomes. Plus they exude the confidence and flair of a group that has never known defeat. Whatever shall come of this?

I really am wondering if Byron and crew are well and truly incompetent.

So far they’ve succeeded at…what, killing the leader of a religious order who captured one of their teammates who, let’s not forget, BURNED DOWN THEIR CHAPEL? Saving some kids who…at least that one pirate leader kid didn’t seem that unhappy in the first place? Vaguely supporting the kind of douchey government with political intrigue? Failed at stopping a volcano from exploding and sort of causing its explosion? DIED after failing to broker a peace agreement? Allowed a great hero (Yes, Best did a lot of heroic stuff) to die ignobly?

Damn, the way they’re working out, I wouldn’t join their party if you paid me to. Heroes? More like…something that rhymes with heroes but is negative. Sorry, I have zero things I think of that fits here.

Of course this is a bit different. These guys were never supposed to be super soldiers or anything. We’ve gone and systematically dismantled all of the “Friendship, honor and goodness lead to victory” type notions. Their quest is quite blatantly more than they can handle, but they’re still doing it because it needs to be done, or because the pay is right depending on where we are in the journey. A sizable failure rate is quite natural. We’re kind of giving the guys room to grow here.

It’s a rag tag group of adventurers and this isn’t a story that interprets that as a superpower. To get to the top you gotta work your way from the bottom.

Normally in fiction a rag-tag group of adventurers is able to struggle through by the skin of their teeth though. If they don’t, they DIE. Which happened to this group, but they got a second chance and…kinda still screwed the pooch on their first adventure back.

And yet Syr’nj still has boundless optimism that they’ll one day be memorialized to such a point that Best will be remembered as the one who saved them over, you know, all the other crap he did.

Shooting kinda high there Syr’nj. Maybe you should aim at saving puppies or planting trees behind lumberjacks first.

She was trying to give peace to a dying man. Not the time for pessimism or practicality.

“Hey, Best! You’re dying man. That totally sucks! Don’t worry though, we’ll try and spread the word about how awesome you were! Like, don’t get too hopeful or anything though. We’ll probably be joining you soon. Dangerous profession and all, and frankly this quest has already killed us once. Just don’t go counting that legacy before it’s hatched is what I’m saying.”

Just doesn’t work quite so well does it? That right there is how vengeful spirits are made.

Their successes are more than you’ve given them. Evil cult beatdowns (Whatever that other cult is, not Frigg’s order), beating down an evil order (You don’t really think they didn’t know that Frigg’s order was evil, do you?), saving a bunch of kids (the kid who was the pirate leader didn’t seem that unhappy because HE WAS THE PIRATE LEADER. The other kids were run-of-the-mill kidnapping victims). The volcano I kind of got the impression was going to be used to summon some evil god or something… It’s pretty clear that the villain there wasn’t just after setting off the volcano based on his reaction). Political intrigue, well, they did their job. We certainly don’t know enough about the politics of this world to make some sort of clear-cut decision as to “heroics” there but they did their job.

-nods- Mmhm. I noticed that pretty quick, though it seemed I was terrible at expressing it in my first post. Someone also mentioned further up that there is a fourth cup so maybe Ardaic decided he was going to stick with four this time

No, that should be Scorp*. Could end in -us, -ius, -um, -ium, -ia, -ie, -iea, or any number of other things depending on the exact grammatical usage, but it would definitely start with scorp. Scipio was a fairly famous family, renowned for consuls and generals (frequently at the same time). Famous feats included defeating Hannibal and destroying Carthage.

Remember how Bandit had stolen every single item of worth in the city? This is where we find out she had several scrolls of recall and potions of regeneration on her, but she just never told anyone because she didn’t want to share.

Okay, here’s my theory (which, given my track record, is all but guaranteed to be false):

This is another adventuring guild — i.e., player-characters — who were doing the same quest line given by the NPC, Ardaic. They happen to be more or less consistent roleplayers, actually going to a gameworld tavern to discuss their recent success in character.

Rachel, the nun, recognizes Frigg as another player-character, either because they’d done quests together, or because Frigg is famous from the VR tank experiment. In either case, she’s surprised, because Frigg (and the others) disappeared without explanation.

Frigg doesn’t remember Rachel, for reasons similar to Syr’nj’s surprise that these adventurers know Ardaic: they don’t realized they’re in an MMO, and have forgotten their experiences in the game that precede the beginning of the narrative (i.e., they don’t remember what they did before Chapter One).

Has there been any previous mention of scrolls of recall? They’re a familiar CRPG element, and obviously something supremely useful to have on hand, so it’s interesting if our protagonists have never mentioned them.

One counter-point that occurred to me is that ever since Chapter Nine, I’ve been expecting something from Sepia World to intrude upon the characters and disrupt their sense of reality. I was particularly expecting that to happen with the Basin of Destiny. Yet so far, Arkerra has seemed entirely self-contained.

Guilded Age does not claim ownership of any of the corporate branding that appears in this comic, nor does it claim any affiliation, partnership, or endorsement of any kind. They are used strictly as an artistic choice for the set dressing of the comic.